I live in SE PA, burn lots of Ash (SMH) after losing 20 of them. Cherry too. I use very dry heartwood of white pine to start and burn off creosote on a routine basis. My clean out cap is in a fireplace, brushed from the top, approx 20 feet on a medium pitch roof. Over the past few years, I've been hiring the wood stove installer to come out and do an annual maintenance. This last time however, I'm not so sure they even swept the chimney. I'm about to go up and do it myself, just to make sure it was done right, also I need to seal my chimney cap (turbo seal). Just wondering if anyone had a less than stellar experience with this type of service. The reason why I'm concerned is basically after inspecting the wood stove after they left, I put my hand inside the connecting pipe out of the back of the wood stove and basically scooped up nearly a cup of soot with very little effort. The day after we spent hours wiping down the entire area of the hearth, shelves and antique wheel lamps and everything else on display around the fireplace area which I've never seen before. Of course it was good to have an excuse to rip everything apart and clean like it should be, but there was a fine black dust on everything after they left. Wondering if I'm being too picky? If I would have done this myself, everything from top to bottom would have been entirely clean.
Annual chimney and wood stove maintenance
- Thread starter mvortex1
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Yes, I’ve had a similar experience, where the overpriced sweep / installer tried to upsell me. Since then I bought a soot buster and clean my stoves from the inside.
I can see my chimney cap from the ground to tell if it’s dirty / clogged and to make sure the soot buster gets all the way out of the chimney.
In your case I’d make them come back if it was still dirty and moving forward I’d buy a soot buster and do it myself.
I can see my chimney cap from the ground to tell if it’s dirty / clogged and to make sure the soot buster gets all the way out of the chimney.
In your case I’d make them come back if it was still dirty and moving forward I’d buy a soot buster and do it myself.
For half the price of one cleaning you can get a soot eater and keep cleaning your own chimney with never going on the roof again.
Whitenuckler
Minister of Fire
Here is a video. I bought another cheap version for cleaning dryer ducts to use on my pellet stove.
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